The main variants of the solid oxide fuel cell are the tubular solid oxide fuel cell (T-SOFC), the planar solid oxide fuel cell (P-SOFC) and the monolithic solid oxide fuel cell (M-SOFC).
The tubular solid oxide fuel cell comprises a tubular solid oxide electrolyte member, which has inner and outer electrodes.
The monolithic solid oxide fuel cell has two variants. The first variant has a planar solid oxide electrolyte member, which has electrodes on its two major surfaces. The second variant has a corrugated solid oxide electrolyte member, which has electrodes on its two major surfaces.
Our European patent EP0668622B1 disclose a novel solid oxide fuel cell, which comprises a plurality of modules. Some of these modules comprise hollow members, which have two parallel flat surfaces upon which the solid oxide fuel cells are arranged. The opposite ends of each module are connected to reactant manifolds by compliant bellows connections.
However, such an arrangement does not provide sufficient thermal and mechanical compliance in the solid oxide fuel cell stack to minimise the mechanical and thermal stresses in the solid oxide fuel cell stack.